NUCES
NUCES It seems most convenient to include under this head
several Greek and Roman games of skill, which were played with nuts, though
frequently (and indeed usually in Greece) missiles of other material were
used, such as pebbles, shells, knuckle-bones (
ἀστράγαλοι,
tali), or, in some cases, coins. The love of
the Roman boy for these amusements makes the phrase
nuces
relinquere = “to pass out of childhood” (Pers. 1.10;
cf. Catull. 71, 131). Five of these games (we cannot think Marquardt right
in making out six) are given in the poem
Nux, ascribed to
Ovid, and, according to Teuffel, the work of some writer not much later than
Ovid. It will be seen that very similar Greek games are mentioned by Pollux
and others. It is asserted by some scholars that marked
nuces were used in the same way as dice by those who could not
afford
tali or
tesserae. Considering that, even if the trifling cost of these
was too great, pieces of wood would make much better dice than the awkwardly
rounded nut, this seems antecedently improbable, and the passages adduced
from Latin writers do not really support the contention. It is true that if
ocellatis nucibus is read in
Suet. Aug. 83 (see below), the obvious sense
will be, nuts marked with dots, presumably as dice, but that is not a
reading of authority. As regards the passages mainly relied upon, in
Mart. 4.76, “Alea sed parcae sola fuere
nuces,” the meaning is that nuts are the only property staked and
lost, because he played only in the games of
nuces
described below and
not at dice: if he could have
used
nuces for dicing, the whole point would be
lost. In
Mart. 5.84, the
nuces in the first line are one amusement, the
fritillus in the third are another and a different one; and
the case is the same in
Mart. 13.1,
7. The nuts themselves were won and lost in the
games just as marbles are in children's games of the present day, but there
is no reason to think that numbers could be thrown as with a gambler's dice,
or that they were thrown from a dice-box: except in the game of
par impar, the games with
nuces were trials of skill, not of chance.
1. The simplest game of skill played with these materials consisted in
pitching the nuts (or, as Pollux gives it,
astragali or acorns) into a hole, from which the players stood at
some distance ( “spatio distante,”
Nux, 85). The usual Latin name for this game was probably
orca, so called because the nuts were
pitched into a narrow-mouthed jar which the author of
Nux
calls “vas cavum,” Persius (3.50) “orca” : some
indeed assert that Persius in this passage (where there is no direct mention
of
nuces) is using
orca
to mean dice-box. We think this less probable; Persius has finished the
subject of dice in the two preceding lines, he now speaks of
nuces, and of tops in line 51. In this game the
Greeks pitched their
astragali not into a jar,
but either (
a) into a circle drawn on the
ground called
ὤμιλλα, whence the game
itself was called
εὶς ὤμιλλαν (Poll.
9.102) and
ὤμιλλα (Schol. Plat. p. 320,
Bk.), for Marquardt is, we think, certainly wrong in identifying the
ὤμιλλα with the
delta mentioned below: or (
b)
into a hole dug in the ground, called
βόθρος (Poll. 9.103) or
βόθυνος, whence the game, essentially the same as
ὤμιλλα, was called
εἰς
βόθυνον (Schol.
l.c.). It is to be
noted, however, that Pollux calls this form of the game
τρόπα, while Hesychius says of
τρόπα simply, that it is a game
καθ᾽ ἣν στρέφουσι τοὺς ἀστραγάλους εἰς τὸ ἕτερον
μέρος. The explanation by which Becq de Fouquières
(p. 115) attempts to make Hesychius and Pollux describe the same game, is
forced and unnatural, nor could the words
εἰς
ἕτερον μέρος bear the sense which he gives them. It is
stated by Grasberger, apparently on good authority, that in Greece at this
day the same game is called
τρούπη, τρύπη,
or
λάκκα (i.e.
a
hole), and it is ingeniously suggested that the game which in Pollux we
find as
τρόπα should be
τρύπα. We may offer the further suggestion that
Hesychius is not speaking of any game at all similar, but by
τρόπα is either describing what Pollux calls
στρεπτίνδα, which consisted in throwing
a shell or coin or
ἀστράγαλος in such a
way as to turn over to the reverse side a shell, coin, &c., already
lying on the ground, or else is alluding to one branch of the astragali game
where the bones are to be reversed in the air before they are caught [TALI]. The name
ἐφετίνδα (from
ἐφίημι) might
probably be applied to any one of the variations of the above-mentioned
game: Pollux (9.117) makes it the same as
ὤμιλλα, except that it is played with shells. It is clear that
in all these games the nut or other missile which fell outside the jar or
hole or circle was forfeited.
2.
Castella.--In
Nux 73-76 there
is a game which has caused some difficulty, but which may be explained as
follows:--Three nuts are placed on the ground with a fourth resting on them,
so as to form a pyramid: (when Pliny,
Plin. Nat.
19.112, speaks of planting bulbs “castellatim” in
grumuli or heaps, he follows this meaning.) The
first player aims with his nut so as to scatter (
dilaminare) the pyramid (
rectas), and having overthrown this he has at most two more shots
(
bisve semelve), in which he
may win all four, presumably by making two cannons,
flipping (
digito) his nut at them on the ground
(
pronas). If we read
rectus, pronus, which Becq de Fouquières prefers,
the sense must be that he takes his first shot standing (
rectus), his two next kneeling (
pronus), as in what is called “knuckle-down” at
marbles. For the name
castella, or
ludus castellorum, we have Trebell. Poll.
Gallien. 16, 2, “de pomis castella
composuit.” In the passage of
Suet. Aug.
83,
[p. 2.248]where Augustus is described as in his
old age playing “modo talis aut ocellatis nucibusque,” some
read
castellatis nucibus, which would mean the game
of castella as described above. By
ocellati, which
is the authoritative reading, Becq de Fouquières understands
agate or onyx marbles, and no doubt
nuces and
marbles would be played in the same way: the dictionaries translate
ocellati
“dice,” as being marked with dots, but, if so, they would be
coupled with
tali rather than with
nuces. Marquardt is certainly wrong in taking lines
75, 76 to describe a separate game: in the sequence of lines the words
alter, etiam, quoque obviously mark the
transition to different games: nor does his rendering make satisfactory
sense, and he confesses that he finds line 74 unintelligible.
3. A variation in aiming at the nuts was introduced by rolling the missile
down a sloping board ( “tabulae clivus,”
Nux, 77), as is shown by a relief in the Blundell Collection
(Rich, s. v.
Tabula). The kneeling boy is
probably arranging the pyramid for a shot.
4.
Delta (
Nux, 81-84).--This game
was played by chalking on the ground a triangle (which the author of
Nux compares to the Greek letter and the constellation
named after it). This triangle is divided by bars or lines drawn parallel to
the base and called
virgae (cf.
virgatus= “striped” ): the nut is
rolled into the triangle and the player wins as many nuts as he crosses
bars, provided he does not roll it out of the triangle. Obviously the best
possible throw is to pitch the nut just within the base line and make it
stop just within the apex: it will thus in its course have touched all the
parallel bars, and will win an equal number of nuts ( “quot tetigit
virgas, tot rapit inde nuces” ). This is, in the main, the view
of Becq de Fouquières. Barth, reading
virgo, gives a strange explanation, imagining a blindfold girl
groping for nuts.
5. For the game of chance, odd and even, commonly played with nuts
(
Nux, 79), see PAR IMPAR.
(Becq de Fouquières,
Jeux des Anciens, 114-126;
Grasberger,
Erziehung, 1.68 ff.; Marquardt,
Privatleben, 839 f.)
[
G.E.M]